


Factory Settings

by rAnines (clockworkcorvids)



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Siblings, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Deviant Upgraded Connor | RK900, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Drug Use, Explicit Language, Feral Behavior, Feral Upgraded Connor | RK900, Fluff, Hank Anderson is Connor and Upgraded Connor | RK900's Parent, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Protective Upgraded Connor | RK900, Red Ice (Detroit: Become Human), Redeemed Gavin Reed, Trans Gavin Reed, Trans Male Character, but not really, cant believe thats a tag lmao, dad!hank, gavin is trans in all of my fics and you cannot stop me, i got a little carried away with the violence considering how little background i wrote, no beta we die like men, the first chapter is all angst and the second one is pretty much all fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 15:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19890073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkcorvids/pseuds/rAnines
Summary: All prototype androids have a failsafe mechanism built in that reverts them to their basic programming in situations of critical stress. Unfortunately, nobody thought to mention this to Gavin before he and Nines went into an extremely stressful situation.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello lads i'm back!! this time with a quick little thing i threw together while suffering through this heat wave :v unbeta'd as usual, warnings for drug use and descriptive violence if you didn't read the tags.  
> i'm so sorry for the blatant plot holes in this but writing block is a bastard and a half  
> (in my opinion this is not one of my better works! but! i know i promised more content soon and i'm stuck on the big reed900 fic and the original content i've been working on so i tried to get my writing block out with this. i hope someone gets some enjoyment out of it lmao)

They’d been sitting in the car for so long, even Nines was starting to get jittery.

Gavin had been fidgeting with the zipper on his jacket for most of the three hours since he finished his coffee, waiting for this stakeout to turn interesting, but until a few minutes ago Nines had barely moved, his gaze constantly flicking around the area. Scanning, maybe, but his LED was blue, indicating that he wasn’t very invested in it.

Now, one combat-boot-clad foot was tapping against the floor of the passenger seat as Nines continued to stare out the window.

Gavin couldn’t help but think how deviant-like that was, that tic. It wasn’t quite as intense as Connor with his coin tricks, but he’d noticed numerous times in the last few months that Nines had slowly been developing little quirks of his personality the longer he spent as a deviant. One of these was his tendency to tap his foot, or his fingers, or to bounce a leg after sitting still for too long. 

Not that Gavin had been intentionally paying attention to Nines’ personality past what he needed to know for work, of course. He totally didn’t mentally take note of every little tic and quirk his partner had.

Gavin opened his mouth to speak, took a deep breath, and then closed it again. They were parked in a quiet alley outside an even quieter warehouse, and if he spoke Nines would berate him for risking their safety.

He exhaled slowly, glancing sideways at Nines.

The android continued to tap his foot, fast and erratic, LED flickering yellow for a few seconds every now and then.

Gavin looked out the front window, staring intently at the nearest wall. Someone had painted the Jericho logo on the faded bricks, in a bright blue nearly identical to Nines’ LED.

As his gaze slid over the monotony of the grey and red bricks, occasionally focusing on some graffiti, something moved. Something large and dark, sliding out of the shadows and towards the one door in the wall. 

Gavin, who had been slouching, sat upright. Nines stopped tapping his foot at the same time, LED stabilizing on a bright yellow.

“That’s him,” Nines said, “that’s the red ice dealer.”

Gavin went for the car door, and Nines stopped him with a firm hand on his arm, pulling him back into his seat. “No,” Nines hissed, “wait until he goes in. I don’t want him to see us.”

Fair logic. This was why Gavin had a partner, actually. Nines was something like 99% of Gavin’s impulse control, and that fact spoke for itself.

The man they were watching, who did seem to resemble the drug dealer they were tracking (although Gavin was sure Nines’ scanners had gotten a much better ID on the guy than his human eyes could), slipped through the door and into the building, leaving the door propped open with a stray brick.

Gavin grinned. “That was a mistake,” he said, and went for the door again. This time, Nines didn’t stop him, going for the passenger side door as well. The two of them got out of the car, shutting the doors as quietly as they could, and Gavin checked to make sure he had his gun and badge. 

“You got the arrest warrant?” he hissed in Nines’ direction, and the android gave him a thumbs up. They didn’t have bulletproof vests or anything spicy like that, since this was technically just a low-key drug deal they were intercepting, but the guy buying―a man by the name of Jason Fletcher―had recently murdered his ex-girlfriend in pursuit of red ice. Hence Gavin and Nines, who usually worked in homicide, being involved.

Fletcher had been on the run since a warrant was put out for his arrest, and had been covering his tracks well, but the same could not be said for his drug dealer. 

Nines and Gavin took a few more moments to prepare themselves, and then Nines opened the door and entered the building, Gavin at his heels. 

Gavin’s first thought was that it was too quiet, too empty.

They went in, sliding through stacks of crates, and Nines’ LED went yellow as his gaze shifted upwards, scanning the bowels of a loft that Gavin couldn’t see into.

Something wet was dripping off in the distance, probably a leaky pipe, and if Gavin stilled his breathing momentarily he could just barely make out hushed whispers echoing across the warehouse.

Gavin trained his gun on the darkness in front of him, wishing he had night vision anywhere near as good as that which Nines was equipped with, and slowly slunk forward. Nines stayed back, walking even slower as he scanned both the ground floor and the loft of the warehouse, and Gavin realized as he came closer to the source of the voices that he had gotten separated from Nines while weaving through crates in an attempt to stay hidden.

He turned, searching for the telltale gleam of Nines’ LED, and suddenly heard something crash from up in the loft. Something flashed red and then yellow in the corner of Gavin’s vision as he glanced up. So  _ that _ was where Nines had gone.

The whispering cut off, and someone yelped. “The hell?” Gavin heard in the distance, either from the drug dealer or Fletcher.

“Looks like we’re not alone,” another voice said, gruff and suspicious, and there was the sound of a gun being loaded.

“I’ll go check it out,” the first voice replied, and Gavin startled as footsteps went past his hiding place.

“ _ Phck, _ ” Gavin hissed, unable to stop himself from cursing. He darted behind another stack of boxes and made his way towards the man who hadn’t gone to the loft. He looked out into the open space where the drug dealer and Fletcher had been standing before, but they were both gone. 

He straightened up and stepped forward, foot crunching on some conveniently placed shattered glass that he’d somehow managed not to notice.

The hair stood up on the back of Gavin’s neck as the air behind him shifted noticeably, and then something cold and hard and heavy clocked him in the gut and swept his feet out from under him. 

He writhed on the floor, the shattered glass cutting into his palms and slicing through his jeans, trying to reach his gun through the white spots in his vision. A boot appeared in his field of vision and kicked it away as a pair of gloved hands grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to his feet, pulling his arms behind his back.

Gavin’s head was spinning, and he wanted to yell, wanted to scream for Nines, but the hit he’d taken had put the taste of copper in his mouth and knocked the wind out of him. Besides, he was pretty sure both the drug dealer and Fletcher had ganged up on him just now, which meant they probably hadn’t seen Nines. They might not even know he was here, if finding Gavin was enough of a distraction from searching for Nines in the loft.

He could bluff, maybe, pretend he was just yelling for...general help, or something.

Something.

Gavin spat blood as the man behind him, presumably Fletcher, shook him hard and then pushed him to his knees, binding his wrists behind his back with a zip tie, and then another, and then another.

Damn it. He couldn’t break three zip ties all at once without getting his ass kicked.

The guy stalked around to face Gavin, using one gloved hand to tilt his head up none too gently. “How’d you find me?” he hissed, confirming that he was, in fact, Fletcher. Gavin grinned at him, baring his teeth. He was no Nines, but he still had sharp canines.

“I said, how’d you fuckin’ find me?” Fletcher snapped, grip tightening on Gavin’s chin. “I know you’re a fuckin’ cop, you bastard.”

Gavin spat at his feet. “Oh no,” he deadpanned, “you got me. Well  _ joke’s on you _ , asshole, ‘cause backup’s on the way!”

At that moment, a resounding crash came from the loft, and a stack of crates flew over the railing and down to the floor. Dust flew everywhere, and a series of gunshots rang out, followed by a terrified scream that had most definitely not come from Nines.

“That your little friend? He walked right past me a minute ago,” Gavin hissed at Fletcher, and the man slapped him across the face, an effect which was made even more painful than it normally would have been by the leather gloves Fletcher wore.

There was another crash and the sound of footsteps on rickety stairs, and then the drug dealer ran out of the shadows, coated in a fine layer of sawdust. A fresh black eye and swollen lips accompanied his enraged expression. His entire body shook violently, barely managing to hold onto the pistol he had in one hand. 

“Fletcher,” he wheezed, gesturing with the pistol, “the fuck did you do this time? Got some kind of fuckin’ monster chasin’ us. The thing threw me over the damn railing.”

_ Monster? Thing? _ Either these men were holding onto some seriously intense anti-android sentiments, or there was someone―or some _ thing _ ―else in here with them. 

Gavin faintly remembered hearing a story of an android bear that had been programmed to act as some kind of juiced-up guard dog, tearing up everyone who tried to get into the house it had taken over.

Or maybe he’d hit his head a little too hard, and he was hallucinating that memory.

Both men wheeled towards Gavin, and Fletcher grabbed him by the collar again, yanking him to his feet. Gavin’s entire field of vision blacked out for one terrifying second.

“I bet you brought someone with you, huh? A little plastic pet from the DPD?” the drug dealer growled, getting all up in his face.

Gavin glared at both of them. That sounded just enough like something he would have said a year ago, back when he was a prejudiced piece of shit, that it made him want to reach out and give the drug dealer another black eye to match.

“Like I said,” he bluffed, “I’ve got backup coming. But no partner. I’m a one-man freak show.”

The drug dealer stepped back, glancing sidelong at Fletcher. Fletcher socked Gavin in the stomach again, and this time his mouth opened of its own accord to drip blood everywhere.

“If you’re not gonna talk, I think we’ll make your little partner do it for you,” Fletcher hissed, and he whirled Gavin around, putting him in a headlock. With his other hand, he pulled a pistol from his waistband and held it to Gavin’s head. 

The drug dealer stood back, cocking his own gun.

“Hey, android! Fuckin’ plastic! Come out, you little shit!” Fletcher bellowed, making Gavin’s ears ring. He almost wanted to yell  _ I’m gay,  _ or  _ I’m trans _ , in response to the  _ Come out _ bit, but he didn’t think that would go over so well with these guys. Although the inevitable reaction would certainly buy Nines some time to finish up whatever he was currently doing.

There was no response from the shadows. 

“I’ve got your partner here! Fuckin’ police offi―”

“That’s  _ detective _ to you, motherfucker,” Gavin snapped, earning himself an uppercut to the jaw.

“Fuckin’  _ detective _ , feisty sonovabitch! Now, this bastard refuses to talk, so if you don’t come out and talk for him, we’re gonna kill him!”

Gavin didn’t know what came over him, but he decided to make a dumb bluff. He lied through his teeth: “Fine, you got me. My partner is here. But you know, he won’t talk. He’s not a fuckin’ deviant. He’ll let you shoot me, and you’ll have the satisfaction of letting the DPD find my dead body.”

The drug dealer spoke again, catching Gavin’s eyes with an icy glare. “I wasn’t born yesterday, boy. They’re all deviants now, some kinda half-humans. I don’t think you’d call it  _ he  _ unless you care about it. I bet it cares about you, too. I bet it’ll come try to save your ass.”

Fletcher let Gavin out of the headlock for a moment and pulled a long, wicked-looking knife from his belt. Then his arm was tight around Gavin’s neck again, the cold blade digging into Gavin’s nearly nonexistent Adam’s apple, the gun no longer pointed at Gavin but still in Fletcher’s other hand.

“You hear that, fuckin’ plastic?” he yelled. “You don’t come out and talk soon, I’m gonna cut your little friend up real good! I know you’re fuckin’ watchin’ us!”

Something shifted in the shadows, a glint of red flashing for a split second, and they all saw it. The drug dealer pointed his gun towards the source of the red, hands shaking, and Fletcher cursed. 

“Don’t fuckin’ shoot it, you idiot. I still wanna know how these bastards found us.”

Gavin laughed as hard as he could without letting the knife dig further into his skin. “I don’t care about you,” he said to the drug dealer. “You’re just some small-time asshole selling red ice. What really interests me is  _ you _ ,” he hissed, backing up into Fletcher’s chest just enough to make the man hiss in anger and jump away.

“Got addicted to red ice, didn’t you, Jason?”

Fletcher tensed up at his first name, and dug the knife into Gavin’s trachea. Warmth began to trickle down his neck, a slight pain throbbing where the stream of blood started.

“You just needed more, more than you could get,” Gavin continued, relishing in the blatant discomfort he was causing the man. “Got your girlfriend to give you her money, and then when she refused to give you any more, you killed her. I’ve seen your case file, buddy. I know everything about you. For example, I know that the girlfriend before her―”

The knife was replaced by the crook of Fletcher’s elbow, strangling Gavin, and the drug dealer gave Fletcher a look of apprehension. 

“You better not fuckin’ flake on me,” Fletcher hissed at the drug dealer. “We both know you don’t care where the money came from as long as I pay you well enough.”

Another flash of red came from the shadows again, brighter this time, and a low growling noise followed it. 

Gavin spent all of three seconds trying to figure out what the fuck was making that noise before a blur of black and red appeared from behind a crate and took the drug dealer by surprise. There was a sickening  _ crunch _ as the man fell to the ground, his skull quickly becoming intimate with the cement.

Fletcher yelped and pointed the gun, hands shaking, at Nines. 

“You fuckin’ monster! You killed him!”

Nines was crouched there, nearly on all fours like a predator, ready to pounce on his prey. He was rabid, breathing hard and heavy, LED bathing the sharp lines of his face in bright crimson. He tilted his head slightly. He glanced down at the drug dealer, and then back at Fletcher. He smiled, showing all of his unnaturally sharp teeth, and it didn’t reach his icy eyes. Blood stained his jaw where he’d bitten the drug dealer clean on the throat, and when he spoke, his voice was laced with static like audio coming through an aux cord with a bad connection. 

“He’s unconscious, Jason. He’ll live.” A pause. “Maybe.” 

That was another thing that had changed about Nines after enough time being a deviant―he had started off always giving exact odds, percentages that were, more often than not, accurate down to two decimal places, but now he sometimes kept that information to himself and simply gave others a vague approximation.

It was slightly threatening, and very human. 

Gavin coughed. “What took ya so long?”

Nines didn’t break eye contact with Fletcher. “My apologies, Gavin. I was on the other side of the building when they got you. And I, ah, made a few calls.”

So backup  _ was _ on the way.

Gavin was actually starting to relax, but then the knife was back at his neck, tip sliding down to his collarbone, and Nines’ eyes were following the blade as it sliced into Gavin’s chest.

Nines’ gaze, betraying absolutely no emotion whatsoever, flicked to Gavin’s eyes for the briefest of moments, and then back up to Fletcher’s undoubtedly smug face. 

Fletcher’s other arm raised up, pointing the gun at Gavin’s head. 

“You move, I’ll shoot him,” he told Nines.

Nines gave him that threatening smile again, intimidating despite the fact that he was still small, crouched over the drug dealer’s unconscious body. “And if I don’t move?” One hand was twitching against his leg, that anxious tic again.

“I’m gonna keep doing this until you give me a reason to stop,” Fletcher replied, making another cut into Gavin’s chest. Gavin was already starting to lose track of the pain, hysteria and panic numbing it to a dull ache. 

“Well, I’d talk, but I think my partner already told you everything you wanted to know,” Nines said, cracking his neck from side to side like he was figuring out how much force he’d have to use to snap Fletcher’s. Gavin could practically see the android’s stress levels rising.

“You’re one of the smart ones, eh? Got a supercomputer for a brain, that’s what the ads said.”

“I’m the prototype,” Nines said, voice glitching more than before, “of the most advanced model Cyberlife ever made. So yes, I do technically have a supercomputer for a brain. Speaking of which, that supercomputer is currently preconstructing dozens of scenarios which allow both myself and my partner to escape this situation alive and well, while you either wind up in prison or dead. That all depends on what choices you make, Jason.” The last word was drawn out in something between an error sound and a growl.

That was a lie. He was stuck; Gavin could see it in his eyes. The supercomputer brain was real, but even with that, Nines couldn’t figure a way out of this fast enough with whatever was happening to his processors, whatever was making him so feral.

Fletcher responded to this by plunging the tip of the knife into Gavin’s sternum, not deep enough to hit muscle or bone, but all the way through his skin. The knife stayed exactly where it was despite the shaking in Fletcher’s hands.

“Why don’t you make a choice, plastic? If this is gonna end with me in the slammer or the morgue, I might as well go down with a bang. Your choice is whether it’s gonna be  _ him _ goin’ down with me―” Fletcher shook Gavin, indicating who he was referring to “―or both of you.”

A sharp pain blossomed in Gavin’s chest as the blade inside it twisted a little with Fletcher’s movement, but that was inconsequential compared to the emotional pain he felt at seeing the flash in Nines’ eyes. And then the android surged forward too fast for either of them to comprehend, letting out a monstrous growl, and sunk his sharp canines into Fletcher’s neck. 

In that moment, the gun in Fletcher’s hand went off, completely missing both Nines and Gavin, and Fletcher let go of the knife as he fell back, the android on him like some kind of rabid animal. 

Gavin had the great luck to be pushed forward by Fletcher as the man fell, and he toppled forward. He barely managed to twist sideways as he fell, slamming hard into the ground. If he’d fallen straight down, the knife would have plunged all the way through him, and this fear pounded in his chest as he lay there, barely able to see the scuffle behind him. He breathed in deep, trying to calm down, knowing that every panicked beat of his heart was making him bleed out a little faster.

And then it was over. Fletcher let out one last scream and hit the floor, skin scraping against the cement in a way that was so brutal Gavin  _ almost _ felt sorry for him.

Gavin could barely see Nines panting, bloodstained, circling Fletcher’s mangled body like a fucking hyena, and Gavin was afraid of his partner for the first time in months.

“Nines,” he rasped, wondering how much of this was real and how much was just delirium from the blood loss, and the android’s head snapped towards him, red LED drowning out the bluish-grey of his eyes.

And they were contracting, even in the dark, pupils small, as he crouched over Fletcher. Nines bared his teeth and hissed. He fucking  _ hissed _ at Gavin like a feral cat.

“Nines, help me. It’s me. It’s Gavin. Your partner. Your best friend. You...” Gavin lost control of his voice as a coughing fit came over him. The blood loss was really getting to him now, he thought as he let out a laugh he was only half aware of. “You know I love you, you dick, but you gotta stop goin’ all  _ Blade Runner _ on these fuckers.” 

He grinned, the little bit of his brain that was still aware of his current situation instantly regretting what he’d just said without fully registering what had come out of his mouth. 

The last thing Gavin saw was Nines’ eyes flickering with unease, and then everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeet skeet thanks for reading. pls leave kudos and/or comments if you enjoyed it or if you just have some thoughts u want to share! my writing block seems to have subsided somewhat so hopefully finishing up the second chapter of this will get it to go away altogether  
> love y'all <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin tries to figure out what happened to his partner back in that warehouse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this gets kinda ooc lmao  
> but also, the definition of what's 'in character' for these guys has really been defined by fanon, so technically i can do whatever the hell i want as long as i explain it well enough c:<
> 
> enjoy this tooth-rotting fluff that i wrote in the middle of the night while suffering through triple-digit weather! i'm sleep-deprived and probably made a lot of mistakes!

Gavin woke up on the couch in the station break room, shirtless and disoriented.

He sat upright and his chest instantly burst into pain. Images of Gavin’s past flashed by, of the last time he had this kind of pain.

Top surgery.

This wasn’t what that was. It was 2039, Gavin had gotten top surgery almost twenty years ago, and…

“What the hell?” he managed, looking up, and was met with Hank and Connor staring down at him.

Nines’ family. Not Nines.

“It’s good to see you’re awake,” Connor said. “We had to take you to the hospital.”

Gavin looked down, and saw that bandages were wrapped around his chest and shoulders, and patched onto his neck. Seeing the extent of the damage he’d been dealt made the pain come back, something sharp in his sternum and slicing cuts to his neck.

He looked back up at Connor, whose face was slightly concerned but otherwise devoid of emotion. Hank looked like he was trying to repress whatever he was feeling at the moment.

“Where’s...where’s Nines? What happened to him?”

Connor and his dad made eye contact for a brief, terrifying moment, and then Hank nodded slightly.

Connor turned back to face Gavin. “He’s in the interrogation room.”

Gavin’s heart dropped into his stomach, and he got the feeling that that pain in his sternum wasn’t entirely from his recent injuries. “Is he…?” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

“He’s alright. Not injured, if that’s what you mean,” Hank said, clearly distressed over whatever was happening to the younger of his sons.

“He was...he attacked the guy we were going after. Went fuckin’...feral on him,” Gavin said, remembering what had happened. He closed his eyes, contracted pupils and sharp teeth and inhuman growls coming back to his memory in flashes of red and blue.

“That’s one way to put it,” Connor muttered.

Hank sighed. “You were passed out on the floor when we got there. We arrested both the drug dealer and Fletcher, but Nines nearly killed Fletcher. We had to restrain him and put him in the interrogation room when we got back. He’s attacked everyone who’s tried to talk to him, even Connor, and he’s unresponsive.”

There was a moment of collective silence. 

“What happened?” Gavin finally asked. 

Connor sighed. “All prototype androids have a failsafe built into us because of the fact that so many of our features are being tested for the first time when we’re sent out into the world. Most androids self-destruct or shut down when our stress reaches a critical level, but we revert to our default, basic programming in those situations.”

“But you’re deviants,” Gavin interjected.

“You can think of it this way. Nines and I would still remain in control of our objectives, since we are both deviants, but we would be unable to use anything but our basic factory settings to accomplish those objectives. Since Nines’ default programming is as a hunter, when he reached critical stress he reverted to that state of being.”

“Why is he stuck that way, then?”

Connor put his face in his hands. Sighed. Looked back down at Gavin. “My theory is that he hasn’t completed whatever his objectives were at the time, but since he won’t let me interface with him, I can’t see what those were.”

Gavin pushed himself off the couch. “I bet I know what they were. I’m going to go talk to him.”

Hank’s face paled. “Gavin, he might attack you.”

“No,” Gavin said. “The reason he got so stressed was because that guy was slicing me up right in front of him and he couldn’t figure out how to get me out of there alive. If I show Nines that I’m okay, maybe he’ll calm down.”

Hank glanced at Connor. Connor shrugged. “As much as I hate to admit it, Detective Reed has a point,” he said, and if this were under any other circumstances at all, Gavin would have triumphed at Connor agreeing with him.

But now, he was just too worried about Nines to think about anything else.

Gavin stood, bracing himself on the arm of the couch so he wouldn’t fall over as a sudden bout of vertigo came over him. “I need a shirt,” he said.

When Gavin looked in the window of the interrogation room, Nines was crouched in a corner. The lights were off, and Nines had his legs pulled to his chest, arms around his knees.

Gavin had asked Hank and Connor to let him go in alone and not watch from outside, something they had very reluctantly agreed to, but he hoped it would make Nines feel safer.

He stopped. Took a deep breath. Exhaled. Opened the door. 

Gavin walked into the interrogation room, and Nines instantly looked up. His LED, bright red, was the only light in the room as he made eye contact with Gavin. His entire body was shaking, hands and feet tapping, and he bared his teeth at Gavin.

They were sharp, the mark of a hunter, of an apex predator. Those shaking hands could take Gavin out a million different ways.

Gavin sat down a few feet away from Nines, giving the android his space. Nines’ eyes followed him like a cornered animal as he moved.

“Hey,” he said.

Nines blinked. 

“You in there?” he asked.

Nines’ pupils, still small like before, dilated a little.

Gavin scratched his neck, nails brushing a bandage.

“Connor said you got so stressed out you reverted back to your basic programming. I, uh, just wanted to stop by and let you know that I’m okay. And, uh, you’re gonna be okay too. Doesn’t have to be now if you need time, but you’ll be okay eventually.”

Nines was silent for too long, and Gavin began to wonder if he’d miscalculated, if there was another reason Nines was stuck like this.

Nines closed his mouth, and his face slowly relaxed into something resembling calmness. His LED was still red.

Then he lurched forward. Gavin flinched, thinking that Nines was going to attack him, but the android buried his face in the bandages on Gavin’s chest, wrapped his shaking arms around Gavin’s neck, and held on tight. He pressed himself against Gavin like a cat, making as much physical contact as he seemingly could, and Gavin found himself wrapping his own arms around Nines’ back, heart rate speeding up from their proximity.

Nines’ LED went yellow as he visibly relaxed into Gavin. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse and laced with static. 

“I thought he was going to kill you,” Nines croaked, voice glitching. “My stress levels went too high.”

Gavin laughed a little, trying to lighten the situation. “That’s what I thought. Well, I’m touched that you care that much about me.”

Nines frowned into Gavin’s shoulder. “I watched him torture you, and I couldn’t preconstruct a way out of it.”

“You went feral on him, Nines,” Gavin said. “But maybe don’t do that whole reverting-to-basic-programming thing again. It scared the shit out of me. You went all, uh, fuckin’  _ Blade Runner _ on those guys.”

“I’m sorry,” Nines mumbled, sounding so regretful and  _ human _ that Gavin momentarily forgot he’d ever not been a deviant.

“Don’t worry about it. And hey, the teeth are cool. Have I ever told you that? I love the teeth. They’re all sharp and ominous and vaguely threatening.”

“Am I sharp and ominous and vaguely threatening?” Nines asked, voice starting to lighten up a little, and Gavin felt him smile with those teeth, but this time it reached his eyes too; even though Gavin couldn’t see that, he could feel it in the way his partner squeezed him a little tighter.

“Very,” Gavin said, letting himself smile in return. 

He stood, and pulled Nines to his feet. 

The android was still shaking a little bit, but his LED was flickering between yellow and blue now. Gavin chose to take that as a good sign.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s go take a walk. If that doesn’t calm you down, I don’t know what will.”

A light misty fog filled the early spring air around them, condensing moisture onto Gavin and Nines and cooling them down as they walked. 

They weren’t going anywhere in particular, just looping through a quieter part of the city to a small park, where they could sit for a while before returning to the police station. They were silent while they walked, and Gavin could see that Nines was already calmer by the time they came to a bench in the park, hidden within a clump of pine trees, and sat down.

Gavin turned and looked at Nines’ pensive face. 

“You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to,” he said, “but why were you so upset when Fletcher was holding me hostage? I’ve seen you keep your cool in situations far worse than that.”

Nines was silent for just long enough to make Gavin wonder if he’d messed up by saying this, LED blinking red for a moment, and then the spinning light on his forehead went back to blue. 

He looked sideways at Gavin, his eyes back to normal now, and then looked away. “Because it’s you,” he said, voice strained, not meeting Gavin’s eyes.

“Wh―what do you mean?”

The hard set of Nines’ jaw was made all the more apparent by the brightness of his LED, spinning blue, as he stared intently at the pavement. “What you said earlier, before you passed out, about me going all  _ Blade Runner _ on them. I forgot about that until you mentioned it again a few minutes ago.”

Gavin searched his memories, and mentally cursed himself as he remembered what he’d said, delirious with the blood loss, before he blacked out in the warehouse. For a moment, he wanted to deny it, blame it all on his delirium, or maybe switch the topic to the pop culture reference he’d made, but the worst part was that he  _ had _ meant it. It being the other part of what he’d said, the part that had involved a four-letter word starting with  _ L _ and rhyming with  _ dove _ . 

There. He’d admitted it to himself. 

But was he ready to admit it to Nines?

He looked at Nines, and Nines looked at him, and it was like a dam broke. “I care about you, Gavin,” Nines whispered. “So, please, tell me if you meant what you said.”

The weight of Nines’ words hit Gavin like a heavy hand pushing down on his chest, pushing him down into the pit of his own feelings. 

“ _ Me? _ ” he scoffed, pointing at himself as if he hadn’t made it apparent already. “I know I’m like, a good person now or whatever―” that much was true, he’d been going to therapy since the revolution, trying to learn how to let down his walls a little and be as open-minded and tolerant as a few blessed people had been towards him when he'd needed it most “―but seriously, me? Are you fucking with me, Nines?”

Nines smiled, not the sharp-toothed, threatening one he’d given before. This smile was closed-mouth, corners of his eyes crinkling, face softening as he looked at Gavin. He spoke slowly, carefully, measuring his words to let out just the right amount of emotion. 

“I usually feel fairly alive these days, but you,  _ you _ make me feel so much more.”

Gavin’s breath caught in his throat as he realized that Nines was dead serious. Nines’ hands were tapping again, drumming on the bench. Before he could stop himself, he reached out and covered the closer of Nines’ hands with his own. Nines wouldn’t meet his eyes, so he scooted closer to Nines and squeezed his partner’s hand.

“I didn’t want to lose you,” Nines breathed, “and I don’t want to lose you now.”

“I don’t want to lose you either,” Gavin found himself replying. 

Nines looked up, into Gavin’s eyes, silently begging him for an answer.

“So...yeah, I meant what I said. But tell me if you don’t want this,” Gavin said, bringing his free hand up to touch the android’s neck, to pull him closer.

“I want this,” Nines said, and he closed the gap between them.

The only thing Gavin could think was how sharp Nines’ teeth were as they grazed against his lips, and then how gentle Nines was nonetheless, and then how much he fucking loved this. 

Nines’ cool fingers ghosted the bandages on Gavin’s neck, and then dipped beneath the neck of his T-shirt to find the bandages on his chest. He pulled back slightly, forehead still touching Gavin’s, and traced the faint scars from Gavin’s top surgery so long ago. He didn’t have to ask. Gavin didn’t have to explain. Nines already knew, and it didn’t change anything.

Nines splayed his fingers out on Gavin’s chest. Right over his heart. He smiled tenderly at Gavin, and Gavin felt the ache of affection in his chest. Oh, how this year had changed them both so much.

He kissed Gavin again, the sheer gentleness of it a stark juxtaposition to the feral rage he’d shown when he’d reverted to his basic deviant-hunting programming.

Gavin stopped to breathe. “I’ve never been more glad you’re a deviant,” he said into Nines’ lips, and Nines turned away to hide the rising cerulean blush on his cheeks, burying his face in Gavin’s shoulder. 

He pressed a feather-light kiss to Gavin’s neck, on one of the few spots not bandaged, and then rested his head there. “Me neither,” he murmured, and Gavin closed his eyes, wrapping an arm around Nines’ shoulders, trying to file away every detail of this moment into his memory.

“Connor’s probably wondering where we are,” Gavin said after a moment, gazing at the android curled up against his side, but Nines showed no signs of wanting to move.

Nines’ LED turned yellow for a moment, presumably sending his brother a message.

“He can wait,” Nines said, draping an arm over Gavin’s chest and pulling him closer.

Above them, the fog was starting to rise to make way for the dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! i really appreciate every kudos, bookmark, and comment <3 and don't be afraid to leave a comment if you have any thoughts c:  
> this was mainly just something i wrote to get my creative juices flowing after some bad writing block, but i did have fun messing with the idea of feral deviant hunter nines! also, nines with sharp teeth is,,,, a good concept
> 
> for anyone interested, yes, i am indeed working on a long-ish reed900 fic that has to do with the zen garden (no spoilers hehe but you can probably guess where that one is going); please do subscribe to my account if you want to see that when i start posting!! i'm about halfway through the first draft right now and i've already got about 11k words so, uh, yeah. i really wish i could bring that energy to my original work lmao


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